Becoming a programmer for Windows
is like becoming a dentist for a Tyrannosaurus Rex
By: Wil Shipley, President, Omni Development, Inc. May 5, 1998
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Editorial/wjs_Windows.html
Over the last year and a half since I was transplanted into the Mac
community, I've occasionally heard Mac developers on various forums cry
out, "Why don't I just become a developer for Windows?" This is in response
to various perceived injuries perpetrated by Apple, including possibly
dropping QuickDraw GX, changing the Mac UI, embracing Unix, and increasing
the price of some developer support options.
Usually, I assume this is a rhetorical question, like a pouty teenager asking,
"Well, why don't I just go jump off a bridge, then?" But, I feel that too many
innocent observers may have heard this question too often, and asked, with all
sincerity, "Why don't all programmers use Windows? The Windows market is
bigger, after all."
Lots of small programmers have a vision that working with Microsoft is like
being one of those little toothbrush birds for crocodiles -- sure, the
crocodile is the one eating the zebras and gazelles, but there's plenty of
crumbs left in the cracks between his teeth. The crocodiles don't hurt the
birds, as they appreciate clean teeth, and the tiny birds can live very
well off the morsels that the 20-foot crocodile deems not worth bothering
with, so everybody wins.
The problem with this analogy is toothbrush birds never grow up to be
crocodiles -- they spend their whole lives just living off the gunk in
crocodile's teeth. Most people don't set out to create a tiny company;
they want to create the next killer app, and become, if not the next
Microsoft, maybe the next Adobe, or the next MacroMedia. Nobody wants to
stay a tiny bird forever, but that means giving up the gunk and going
for the big game.
A better simile is that becoming a programmer for Windows is like becoming a
dentist for a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Sure, the market is big (lots of seats,
lots of teeth), but both Microsoft and the king of dinos are vicious
carnivores, and both will snap their jaws shut as soon as share their
leavings with you. Rexes don't distinguish between symbiotic birds and
predators -- it's all meat to them.
Microsoft is deathly afraid that now they are a huge company they won't have
creative ideas. This is a good fear, because it's true: How much has Word
changed in the last 8 years? How much has Excel changed? I'm not talking about
adding a feature here and a feature there; I'm talking about really changing
the way people use software.
Microsoft doesn't know how to innovate any more. The problem is that when
Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don't evaluate whether the idea will
move the industry forward; they ask, "how will it help us sell more copies
of Windows?" (This is an actual quotation of Bill Gates in The Seattle Weekly,
April 30, 1998).
So, their business model has come to this: Wait for young companies to create
new products, and, if the product starts to be successful, crush the company
and take its market. Some examples, by no means complete:
In 1995, Netscape pioneered Web browsers, but Microsoft simply bought some
code, hired a bunch of programmers to duplicate Netscape's work, and now
gives away Internet Explorer. They paid Apple millions to bundle Internet
Explorer instead of Netscape with Mac OS, and Microsoft is planning to
bundle IE with Win98. Microsoft even claimed (in a letter sent to Wall
Street analysts last week) that it'll severely impact the economy if they
can't include a Web browser in Win98, even though the economy ran just fine
before 1995, when Netscape brought the first commercial Web browsers to market.
The code Microsoft licensed was from Spyglass, who had written a Web client.
Microsoft only gave them a couple hundred thousand dollars up front, but
promised a percentage of sales to Spyglass. Well, since Microsoft gives away
Internet Explorer, they didn't pay Spyglass anything. Spyglass sued. According
to PC Week (April 20, 1998), Spyglass had to abandon that market and moved
into embedded applications, which Microsoft moved into as well. So, Spyglass
switched to making "integrated offerings for Microsoft products" in order
to, in the words of Spyglass VP Mike Tyrell, "not be 'Microsofted' again".
In 1996, Netscape decided the money was really in servers, and started selling
their first commercial Web server. In response, Microsoft wrote their Internet
server and bundled it, free, with Windows NT.
In 1994, Microsoft started to license compression technology from a company
called Stac, which invented the original disk-doubler. But, after Microsoft
had looked at Stac's source code, Microsoft said, "Nah, we're going to
write our own and crush you. Thanks anyway." Stac sued Microsoft, but
Microsoft counter-sued Stac, and Microsoft got an injunction against Stac
preventing them from shipping their disk doubler until the suit was
resolved. Then, since they had tied up Stac's revenue source, Microsoft
just sat back and waited for Stac to run out of money as the legal system
slowly cranked away. If you can't guess who won, check out the DoubleSpace
utility that ships with Win95.
Perhaps the best example of Microsoft's voraciousness is their dealings with
Intuit, creators of Quicken, which was at one point the best-selling PC
software of all time. Microsoft first came out with Money, to compete with
Quicken. Nobody wanted Money. So Microsoft reduced the price -- offering
'special deals' on Money for as low as $10. (This is a practice called
'dumping', and it's supposedly illegal in America -- it's what we accused
Japanese semiconductor makers of doing with memory chips, years back when
we put a huge tariff on such imports.)
Even at the low, low price, nobody bought Money. So, Microsoft made an offer
to buy Intuit, which the government, in their very first stirring against
Microsoft's monopoly, blocked. Microsoft then started teaming up with banks,
paying them to advertise that transactions could be directly downloaded
into Microsoft Money, conveniently overlooking the fact that the file format
was the Quicken format, and therefore Quicken would work just as well.
Finally, Microsoft started giving away Money with subscriptions to MSDN.
Do I have to go on? Microsoft wants total domination of the software market.
If you create a mildly successful program on Windows, Microsoft will attempt
to kill you. They've already got a stomach full of the severed heads of
other innovators just like you.
Yes, the Mac market is smaller. But it's been a long time since Apple had the
kind of clout to say offhandedly, "We can't decide whether to become your
customer or to put you out of business," as a Microsoft executive said to
a friend of Robert X. Cringely.
It comes down to a choice: Do you want to support Microsoft, the monopoly
whose only goal is to increase their market share; or do you want to support
Apple, the company that is trying to move technology forward?
Put this way, it sounds like a moral dilemma, and many people believe
companies should be amoral and market-driven. But, in truth, it's not a moral
dilemma; it's a question of whether you want to help make Microsoft stronger
(so they'll be that much more powerful when they decide to crush you), or you
want to fight them now.
The beauty is that it's actually easier to succeed when fighting than when
giving in. My company made millions just servicing the NeXTStep market, which
was a tiny fraction of the industry even when compared to the Mac market. It
was easier to advertise in a small market, easier to reach customers, and
NeXT, like Apple today, was eager to help us rather than crush us. Writing
code for Yellow Box is ten times easier than writing Windows code. Three
programmers at Omni have written a Web browser that has the features of
Netscape, IE, and more, which runs on Rhapsody, NT, 95, and (soon) Mac OS.
Microsoft isn't invincible. They won't be around forever. Dinosaurs are
huge and hidebound, and some global change always comes along for which they
aren't prepared. We little birds just have to stay out of their mouths in
the meantime.